I started watching Mouryou no Hako back in 2008. The show was great. My eyes were great. Unfortunately, neither was meant to last. Subbing for the show quickly slowed to a halt. At the time I couldn’t believe that fansubbers were running from a lesbian murder mystery. Now I can’t blame them. I wouldn’t be able to stomach subbing all that spirit bullshit either.
After two straight episodes of the seemingly ceaseless spirit snoozefest, the show finally gets back to its lesbian murder mystery roots. From that point on my only major complaint is that the spirit otaku solves the whole thing almost single-handedly. What’s the point of the other three guys if they’re just going to be useless and fail to hook up with the females of my choosing?
They’re clearly in love
Final Grade: ++
For the record, just because I’m making fun of a show doesn’t mean I think it sucks. If anything, I’m substantially more critical of good shows because they’re the ones that are most often overrated and undercriticized. I rarely write a post for the sole purpose of making fun of a crappy show unless I’m seriously pissed off at it. Besides, I’m perceptive enough to bash anything I watch, so there’s no need for me to pick the low-hanging fruit.
I shall conclude with a story about how Mouryou no Hako protected my chastity. One of my sister’s horny friends was trying to rape me. Somehow I convinced her that the only way I’d allow her to spend time around me was if she watched anime. She agreed, so I put on an episode of Mouryou no Hako. She said exactly three things during the episode:
- Are they lesbians?
- They have huge eyes.
- This is confusing…
I hate people who talk while I watch anime. Thankfully, she left with two minutes remaining in the episode. My loins remain unspoilt to this day.
Needs more yuri…
Nice chart by the way.
It sucked at first. Then I inverted the colors and it kicked ass.
Hmm, you have to expect laymen to talk through anime episodes.
They just do not understand. Tsk tsk.
We true anime fans know that the only time it’s ok to talk during anime is when you’re watching hentai at anime conventions.
Who in their right mind watches porn in public? It’s a damn sad sight.
The guy who goes to every con in his ‘I <3 hentai' t-shirt and looks like he is approximately 58 years old.
Old men have the best lines. An old guy at the last hentai showing I went to kept comparing one of the women to his ex-wife. It was hilarious.
Gotta get your money’s worth. It’s not like there’s anything else going on after midnight at anime conventions.
This is on my list and I have the show downloaded. Good work on the chart, somehow I don’t feel spoilered. Also, too bad about your boy Nash and his team. They did score 107 points, but the Hanners had such a deep bench by dipping into forums for votes.
Good, I thought I crossed the line with the “one guys solves the whole thing” remark.
Nash was so used to winning with only one eye that he had a hard time adjusting back to two. Don’t worry, he’ll be back.
Those two episodes of long-ass conversation wore on me, too. There are parts that are interesting, but it’s a gamble that didn’t really pay off for me. There’s a bit too much talking in general with Mouryou no Hako; however, the story is pretty crazy, the characters are good and the atmosphere is off the charts. I liked it a lot.
And, yes, the lesbian murder mystery. :p
At the end of the day I’m a plot man. Good plot = good show. Mouryou no Hako has it. To tell the truth, the fact that the spirit otaku solves the whole thing actually bothers me more than the spirit filler. The first is a plot problem. The second is a writing/directing problem.
That series was pretty great, despite the couple of flaws. It was actually the first show I ever watched with French subs (even though I’m actually French), since the English ones were just slow as an ass.
I was so into this series at first that I might’ve been tempted to watch it in French myself (even though I barely know any). Instead I went the opposite route and swore off watching it until all the episodes were subbed. A series this complex wasn’t meant to be spaced out. Even a one week break between episodes is too much.
Lesbian murder mystery, damn main stream anime to hell, or Im blaming myself for simply not knowing
It’s not like you can tell it’s a lesbian murder mystery from the title. Mouryou no Hako means something along the lines of Box of Goblins. What does that have to do with lesbians? Oh wait.
Nice. You’ve finally finished it. Now it’s up to me.
digitalboy hasn’t finished a series? I am shock!
Lesbians + Murder Mystery. They should’ve gone right ahead and added that the official show description. Seriously, how could I have missed this!?
I haven’t had the pleasure of watching this (getting pumped up by the description) but I do not see how this show could even go wrong, except what you just mentioned why it partially does. Still, nice to hear there’s some potential to the show that I will now proceed to put on my plan to watch list.
Now, I wish Ghost Hunt HAD lesbians. But I guess we can’t have everything.
Indeed, you can’t have everything.
I didn’t expect the lesbians either. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised.
It has now come to my attention that Ghost Hunt is streaming free on Hulu. It’ll now take a little longer for my eyes to recover.
lesbian murder mystery sounds cool. so ill put this on the list.
also… you should have just nailed that horny bitch THEN proceeded to tell you she was not allowed to spend time around you. or wait… is that why all girls i’ve had sex with now hate me?
Fair point. I haven’t seen her since then. Guess it wouldn’t have made a difference whether she hated me or not.
Awesome. I’ll finish watching this someday.
I knew you’d like my chart 🙂
What, you mean they don’t hook up? I FUCKING KNEW I SHOULD’VE AVOIDED THIS POST UNTIL I FINISHED THE SHOW.
Before I sold out, I used asterisks at the end of each post title to indicate the spoiler level:
This post would’ve only had the single asterisk. Suck it up.
As much as I love Mouryou no Hako, I actually (like I almost always do) agree with the blind raptor. Except that the spirit otaku is damn awesome AFTER he’s done useless chatting in earlier episodes.
*your second link is dead
The spirit otaku was totally badass when he busted into that temple and wrecked that old dude. I also respect him for solving the mystery at the end, but don’t you think it would’ve been nice if some of the others contributed a bit? My main beef was with the blond guy. He was plenty capable and still didn’t do anything. At least we knew the glasses guy was useless, and at least the police guy pushed the plot forward.
honestly, I’m a little sad the “asexual adventures” tag didn’t have any more posts. I mean, who doesn’t want to hear about adventures?
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Seconding what otou-san said. I was expecting a glorious epic that makes Odysseus kneel down and cry, though I suppose surviving for 65 million years past your time is awesome enough.
But yeah, this series really captured my attention… then fell off the map due to subs not keeping up. Guess I have a reason to return to it with this seal of approval.
I was just testing the waters. I feared my adventures may have been too adventurous for you all to handle. Just look, there are only 15 comments so far. Some of my readers must’ve suffered heart attacks.
You’ll have a lot of fun analyzing the music in this series. It’s not like there’s better to do during the spirit filler.
i liked the show alright. the thing that made me the happiest was getting a special screen shot of the cat showing some naughty bits! *swoon*
I think you’ve been hanging around mefloraine a little too much.
Somehow, this has inspired me to finally watch Hikaru no Go.
Was it the ambiguously gay ghost in the spirits post?
Indeed it was.
I have been using anime as my chastity belt whenever I feel the need to protect my womenhood from moronic dickhead
Anime is the ultimate chastity belt. Not even Star Trek unsexes its viewers as thoroughly as anime.
What an awesome way of how this series saved you xD
I need to catch up on this series…. if only the subs didn’t halt for too long that time =_= But I don’t remember being annoyed/bored on the spirit talk like most people…. hhhmmm… ah, maybe ‘coz I like spirit stuff as much as mystery. ehehe ^^;
Some people like spirits. Some people like watching paint dry. More power to them. Not that I could ever imagine Hyper Pyro being bored anyway.
…and once more, Baka-Raptor’s chastity remains protected.
I’ll check this show out, long-winded conversations about spirits sounds just like Bakemonogatari anyway.
Well, at least Bakemonogatari distracts you with fancy visuals. The spirit talk in Mouryou no Hako makes you feel like you’re watching a university lecture.
Lesbians!? I’m in! I’ll just skip the sausage fest in the middle and this should be an excellent series.
Btw. I wish you the best about your eyes. Good luck.
That sad truth is that you could probably cut out all the spirit filler without missing a damn thing. You don’t need to know anything about spirits to follow the plot, kind of like how you could watch Saki or Akagi without knowing how to play Mahjong.
Oh I remember how pissed off I was that the subs were so delayed for this show because I liked it a lot (and not just because of woo! CLAMP character designs!). I did watch it as each episode finally came out, but got utterly confused half the time and ended up marathoning it when it was complete anyway.
Is it bad that I found the episodes where the 4 fellas were just sitting about chatting interesting?
Yes, it’s so bad that I don’t think I can talk to you anymore.
Nyoro~n
I read most comments/replies and i don’t think your post alone would do the trick well without them. =)
really, it is hard to have a girl watching anime with you if she isn’t shy/timid or loves anime, most girls aren’t interested in anything but boring TV shows and soap operas, that’s why my tactic to invite girls to play video-games was (and still is) a major sucess for years to come yet, of course, the wii is the perfect plataform to do this kinda trick because of its casual games that even a puny can play (mario kart for example) 😉
now, for the chastity thing… it really makes sense, because there’re weeks that i “manage” to have free time every noon to watch animes and there’re whole weeks (like this past one), in which i haven’t seen a single episode in the whole week, because…well…you should know already 😉
For the show alone, ++ would be enough to pick a new show to watch, but i preffer to pick the +++ ones, GUARANTEED SATISFACTION.
Filler Comment Ratio 9/10
Sometimes I purposefully leave stuff out of my post because I know I’ll cover it in the comments. Even thought I’m not quite as lazy as I used to be, I’m still damn efficient.
The problem you mentioned about girls is fundamentally the problem with most people: they’re boring. I can tolerate them if they like non-boring things (like anime and my site), but not if they make stupid comments about it.
So you’re “ronery”?
I’m better off arone
That’s what all of them say.
What did the 3 useless individuals do after the one guy solved the whole thing like the great Conan Edogawa?
They walked into a bar. A punchline followed.
lol cn u tk me 2 da bar|
This show made about 800% more sense after I read the first book from the series it was adapted from (Mouryou no Hako is the second book). It was just easier to follow since I’d met everyone before and gotten to know them in the book, so it was easier for me to go back and re-read parts and get to understand the characters that way.
The book I read, Natsu no Ubume (Summer of the Ubume in the English language release), also had some very long philosophical-style parts about spirits and people, etc. It was definitely a bit dense and difficult to follow, but it was simpler than trying to follow the similar moments in the Mouryou no Hako adaptation. I’d love to see the live action movie version to see how it handled all that.
If you liked the anime, I really, really recommend reading Summer of the Ubume.
Reading is still rough on my eyes. I’m currently unliterate. I’ll add the book to the list of things I’ll do when my eyes get better. Right now it’s at #150, right after playing Ocarina of Time.
I can listen to it now if it’s on audiobook. If it’s not, I’ll allow you to read the book to me, but only if you’re good at doing voices.
I’m good at doing voices. I might be up to this for the compensated cost of the book itself.
I hated this because no one finished subbing it for more than a year. I mean, I could have waited a few months, but I just forgot about it. I’ll watch this if I have time and I can still find seeds.
According to comment #25, you might have more fun reading it. And that’s the universal “you.” “You” in particular will definitely have more fun reading it.
I hope to be able to find that book one of these days. Thanks.
DO YOU USE YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM OF CHOICE IN HIGH RESOLUTION OR WOULD THAT MAKE IT WORSE. I THINK MY VISION IS GOING TO SHIT TOO, I CAN’T GET NEW GLASSES UNTIL AUGUST
1440×900. My laptop sucks in every other resolution it supports.
You should get the Anime Chastity Loin Locker. It has a picture of Asuka on it shouting “Baka!”
Maybe if it actually plays her voice. Bonus points if it’s motion-activated.
you’d better steamroll hanner’s into nonexistence or I am going to steal your eyes which will give me even greater powers than before
sure, I’ll be blind, but I’ll have magical sensory powers and hopefully I won’t end up like that twat with the black hair and I’ll be more like the magical silver-haired god david bowie
He likes K-ON. I won’t be able to hold back.
i’ll have to help in some fashion
this will occur sometime after hell freezing over when I do my Tylor megapost
So I randomly decided I wanted to read your older posts that I hadn’t read before. I started from the post-sellout beginning and read you LoGH post. Everything was going fine until I got to this sentence.
>>>Everything about this anime rules (except the graphics, but that’s because it’s old). Watch it.
>>>except the graphics
>>>graphics
I just ragequit your archives.
digitalboy quitting? I am shock.
i ragequit gigantor because it had shit tier graphix
Making people watch anime is almost as effective as a chastity belt.
I’ve never heard of this. I’ll have to look it up. I always like lesbians.